Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/34

 XXVI INTRODUCTION.

before the last of September, to remain with such plan- tation. * Although Dudley had been, as early as 1627, interested in the proposition to plant a colon}- for the propa- gation of the gospel in New England, and had been active in the measures which preceded the departure of the Com- pany itself, t yet he does not appear by the records to have had any connection with the Company until the 15 th of Oc- tober, 1629. On that day, he and Winthrop were, for the first time, present at a meeting. | On the 20th of the same month, Dudley was chosen an Assistant ; and, on the 1 8th of the following March, Bradstreet was elected to the same office, in place of Mr. Thomas Goffe. § From that time, they devoted their lives to the interests of the Com- pany, holding the various high offices in the gift of their associates and fellow-colonists. They were the deposi- taries of the most important trusts, and had at times committed to them the conduct of business of vital con- sequence to the Colony. A thorough history of the lives of these two men would embrace the history of Massachu- setts, if not of all New England, down to the close of the seventeenth century. Dudley was soon elected to the re- sponsible position of " undertaker," — that is, to be one of those having "the sole managinge of the ioynt stock, w"' all things incydent thervnto, for the space of 7 yeares." || At a Court of Assistants held aboard the "Arbella" on the 23d of March he was chosen Deputy-Governor, in place of Mr. John Humphrey, who was to stay behind in England. 1[ It would seem as if, before leav-


 * Hutchinson's Collections, pp. 25, 26.

t Dudley's Letter in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, pp. 309-10.

X Mass. Colony Records, Vol. i. p. 54.

§ Ibid., p. 69. II Id/d., p. 65. 1 /3id., p. 70.

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